HEADLINES FROM THE IZRAELI HEBREW PRESS
HA’ARETZ:1. PRISON SERVICE ALLOWS YIGAL AMIR TO LEAVE SOLITARY.
After 17 years in isolation, PM’s assassin will be allowed to serve the rest of his sentence with other prisoners and go out into the yard daily.
2. Dissolved Plesner committee to present its recommendations.
TODAY: NETANYAHU AND MOFAZ TO MEET IN ORDER TO PREVENT KADIMA FROM QUITTING.
MA’ARIV
1. RABBI OVADIAH: IF SANCTIONS ARE IMPOSED
– SHAS WILL LEAVE.
Tension in Knesset ahead of anticipated presentation this morning of the findings of the committee on equality in bearing the burden, which was dissolved by the PM. Mofaz threatening to resign.
YEDIOT AHRONOT
1. High school seniors before army service: Netanyahu, don’t surrender to the ultra-orthodox.
„EVERYONE MUST SERVE LIKE US.”
(…).
2. WAS ARAFAT POISONED?
Al-Jazeera investigation: Traces of polonium, produced in nuclear reactors, found on clothes he worn before death.
YISRAEL HAYOM
1. This morning: Plesner findings. After the crisis: Contacts renewed between Likud and Kadima.
REPORT
–
AND NEGOTIATIONS FOR COMPROMISE.
Of all members, only MK Plesner will sign conclusions. Assessment: PM will announce that he accepts most of them
–
and open contacts on making changes. Kadima threatening: Without serious negotiations, we will bolt. Ramon: I will set up new party to compete against Kadima.
2. „RADIOACTIVE POISON KILLED ARAFAT.”
Al-Jazeera: Nuclear material found on his clothing. Widow: Exhume his remains for tests.
WALLA!
1. PLESNER RECOMMENDATIONS: EXEMPTIONS FOR 1,500 ULTRA-ORTHODOX AND PUNISHMENT OF EVADERS.
Committee chaired by Kadima MK Yohanan Plesner presents its recommendations on alternative legislation to Tal Law. Main points: Draft for 80% of ultra-orthodox within five years and imposition of personal and institutional sanctions.
2. FIRST TIME: PRISON SERVICE ALLOWS YIGAL AMIR OUT OF SOLITARY.
PM Yitzhak Rabin’s assassin to be allowed to move from solitary to regular wing where he will mix with other prisoners. Unlike previously, security officials did not demand that Prison Service continue holding him in solitary.
3. FORMER ISA DEPUTY DIRECTOR: „ARAFAT POISONED? NONSENSE.”
MK Yisrael Hasson, ISA deputy director in late 1990’s and who was involved in peace talks with the Palestinians, reject Al-Jazeera investigation findings that Arafat was poisoned.
NANA10
1. PLESNER: 80% OF ULTRA-ORTHODOX WILL BE DRAFTED FOR TWO YEARS, NIS 7,500 FINE FOR EVADERS.
Even though PM declared dissolution of the committee on promoting equality in bearing the burden, MK Yohanan Plesner presented its recommendations. Committee calls for quota of 1,500 exemptions for ultra-orthodox yeshiva students.
2. FIRST TIME: YIGAL AMIR TO LEAVE SOLITARY.
After 17 years of complete separation, PM’s assassin will be allowed to serve his sentence with other prisoners.
[Headlines for Walla! and Nana10 are from their websites as of 11:35.] ______________________________
SUMMARY OF OP-EDS FROM THE HEBREW PRESS
All three newspapers discuss various issues related to the current controversy over whether or not to require all citizens to perform either military or civilian service:
Yediot Ahronot comments on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s choice of who to handle the contacts with Kadima Chairman Minister Shaul Mofaz and others in an effort to find a compromise on the universal service issue that would keep the governing coalition intact: „So what if he was ejected from the Prime Minister’s bureau after admitting to unbecoming conduct toward a female subordinate? So what if he was barred from returning to serve in the public sector, in any position<www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=258441>? Even after all this, Natan Eshel is still closer than anyone to Benjamin Netanyahu, his man for special missions, his confidant and the man he relies on more than anyone.” The author complains that Eshel goes about Prime Minister Netanyahu’s business, „as if nothing happened,” and remarks, „And nobody finds it strange that a man who was ejected from public service continues to occupy center stage
–
a position he receives from the Prime Minister?”
Ma’ariv reminds its readers that, „There were several attempts in the past to draft the ultra-orthodox,” but adds, „They all failed because nobody
– from Dayan to Begin to Netanyahu – really wants to do so.” The author asserts that one cannot criticize only the ultra-orthodox and says, „Little, power-hungry politicians, all of them secular, have – out of narrow considerations that have nothing to do with equality –
given the ultra-orthodox a gift more precious than gold. The ‘suckers’, who constitute a minority, carry the others on their backs because their cynical and fundamentally immoral representatives have sold them out.”
Yisrael Hayom believes, „The principle of service for all from age 18 will lay the first bricks toward creating a new public space in which nobody is more or less equal than others. Everyone will be involved in building the civil society, everyone will have equal rights and equal obligations. Just as the State of Israel does not allow its citizens to choose whether or not to pay the television and radio licensing fee, it must require them to their part in bearing the burden of service. Without an enforcement mechanism in the form of imprisonment or significant fines of at least NIS 150,000, the principle of universal service will remain a mere recommendation.”
BreuerPress info
